Linda Morabito | |
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 Morabito pictured after her discovery of Io volcanism, in front of a model of the Voyager spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is holding a print of the image that enabled her to make the discovery. | |
| Born | (1953-11-21)November 21, 1953 (age 71) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | University of Southern California |
| Known for | Discoveringvolcanism on Io |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | www |
Linda A. Morabito (born November 21, 1953), also known as Linda Kelly, Linda Hyder, and Linda Morabito-Meyer, is the astronomer who discoveredvolcanic activity on Io, a moon of Jupiter. She made this finding on March 9, 1979, at NASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory. At the time of her discovery, she was serving as Cognizant Engineer over the Optical Navigation Image Processing System (ONIPS) on theVoyager deep space mission Navigation Team. While performing image processing analysis of aVoyager 1 picture taken for spacecraft navigation, she detected a 270 kilometres (170 mi) tall cloud off the limb ofIo. The cloud was of volcanic origin.[1] This was the first time in history that activevolcanism was detected off of Earth. Her discovery is considered by some planetary scientists as the largest discovery of the planetary exploration program that has come out of Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Morabito is currently an associate professor ofastronomy atVictor Valley College. She also authored a memoir,Parallel Universes, a Memoir from the Edges of Space and Time.
Born inVancouver, British Columbia, Canada, she immigrated with her family to the United States in 1961. As a child, she believed that she had always known she would be an astronomer and benefited greatly from an accelerated program of learning in thePasadena, CA Unified School District, skipping an entire year of elementary school because of her demonstrated knowledge. By her 9th year of school, she wrote a paper for school entitled "My Job in the World: Astronomer".[2]
Linda Morabito married Major David Meyer (U.S. Air Force, Retired), an associate professor of astronomy, in 2008. She has one son, Ryan Hyder (father Jerry Douglas Hyder), who was a musician, two step-sons, Jason and Brett Hyder and three grandchildren Robert Wooten, Nathan Hyder and J.D. Hyder.[2]
Linda Morabito graduated from theUniversity of Southern California (USC) with a B.S. inastronomy in 1974[3] and did graduate work in computer science at USC. Before receiving her astronomy degree, she joined NASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for temporary summer employment, and later accepted a position after receiving her Bachelor's degree in the Outer Planet Satellite Ephemeris Development Group at JPL as an engineer (1974–1981). In March 1979, she discovered the anomalous "crescent" off the limb of Jupiter's moonIo in a picture of Io taken byVoyager 1 for navigation, after its close encounter with Jupiter. She proposed a series of hypotheses and conducted investigations to prove or disprove them, to identify the "crescent". Morabito was able to deduce that the observation was a plume erupting from the surface of Io, and volcanic in origin. Her discovery was announced to the world on March 12, 1979.[2]
She joinedThe Planetary Society as Manager of Education and Program Development (1997–2004), where she conducted educational outreach for theMars Global Surveyor mission toMars leading to the involvement of students in theMars Exploration Rover mission with theSpirit andOpportunity rovers on Mars. She became an associate professor of Astronomy atVictor Valley College in 2007, where she currently teaches. She also served as a Guest Investigator on theViking Extended Mission to Mars (1977), conducting an experiment on the surface of Mars, utilizing data collected by the two Viking landers and orbiters. She served as Global Curriculum Developer at theLewis Center for Educational Research (2007–2009), in which she participated in the instruction of students worldwide in the use of a radio telescope for astronomical research in cooperation with several NASA missions, including theSpitzer Space Telescope, theJuno mission toJupiter, and theLCROSS mission to the Moon. She has served as an astronomer lecturer for more than 30 years, and has appeared in numerous science documentaries, and was the regular guest science commentator on two nationally televised talk shows in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (1979–1981).[2]
In 2004, Linda Morabito realized that she was a victim of severe childhood abuse and suffered frompost-traumatic stress disorder. She is a champion ofeye movement desensitization and reprocessing, discovered byDr. Francine Shapiro, as treatment for PTSD. From her experiences and recovery from childhood abuse, Linda Morabito has developed a strong Christian perspective. Her memoirParallel Universes, a Memoir from the Edges of Space and Time is a Christian book and a personal and science memoir. The book documents several near death experiences at the hands of her parents and William Franklin Wolsey of the Temple of the More Abundant Life in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada between 1954 and 1956; her quest to uncover a hidden past from 2003 to 2011; and the events of her major NASA science discovery in 1979.[2]
Morabito has been awarded the following honors during her career:
Authority control databases: Academics |
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